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After the curse broke, these were the facts Leo woke up with:
Donnie loved him too much.
Leo didn’t even know that was possible.
“No– I— Leo, please don’t do this. I– I’ll do better. I’ll do better, just let me out!”
Donnie trusted him too much.
Leo didn’t even know that was possible.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m sorry— just let me out, please let me out, please, I’ll never bother you again, I’ll do anything you want me to, I–I’ll—”
Donnie respected him too much.
Leo didn’t even know he’d looked up to him in the first place.
“Whatever you want me to make! I’ll do it! Please– please please please— Please, please. I-I love you, please, I—”
And Leo had locked him in that closet for four days.
“Please,” he’d said. “Please."
Five hours after their fight with the Shredder, Donnie had pulled Leo out of the medbay and asked him to stitch up his shell.
Leo had been dumbfounded. He’d been up for three days straight and had been about to crash in the delectable turtle pile he’d just helped construct. His hands were trembling. The bags under his eyes were sagging his perfect, beautiful face. And, well, more importantly, he’d never stitched up anything before.
As much as it irked him, his role in the family had never been to staunch the bleeding metaphorically or literally. He was the face man, the chill one, the one that advocated for his little brothers to mess around. Raph kept them grounded and protected and Leo let them spread their wings— the ice to his fire, the wind to his earth. His expectations were to flow, not to fix, and he was pretty good at playing the part of liking it better that way.
You have to be joking, he’d said with a nervous laugh. Just go get Dad, man. C’mon, you can’t actually say you trust me with a needle!
And Donnie had gotten that look on his face, the one that meant he was brute forcing his way through Leo’s mask of indifference and reading him like a picture book. And he’d said, calmly, like it was that fucking simple, I’d trust you with anything.
The water had frozen. The wind had stilled. Something about his words had thrown Leo off-balance, because there was something about hearing I trust you from Donnie in such an earnest tone that held his resolve hostage. It was absolutely impossible to refuse.
So they’d sat down in Donnie’s soundproofed lab, and Leo had stitched his shell. Donnie walked him through it, stifling his whimpers and whines in an attempt to keep his voice steady and reassuring. Leo had been so, so nervous, throwing himself into it with laser focus he didn’t like to afford for just anything. When it came to the health of his twin, it was that simple.
Donnie had never told him why he didn’t want to go to Dad, or to Raph, or to Mikey. He hadn’t given Leo answers no matter how much he pried. Despite the trust he’d given him freely, he seemed guilty to ask Leo for help at all. If I was able to reach it, I wouldn’t have bothered you.
You were literally like, seconds from bleeding out, Leo had said, bewildered.
I’m sorry, Donnie had replied, in this droning and emotionless voice that masked years of unspoken pain that Leo knew he would never, ever hear about, and they’d never spoken of it again.
And yet, it’d changed Leo forever, because he knew how to do stitches now. All of a sudden it was saying let me look at it, Miguel, no biggie when Mikey walked out with a cut on his arm because of an accident in the kitchen. It was hissing through his teeth when he saw Raph cradling a nasty scrape after a fight and sitting him down to mend it, and it was learning how to do CPR in the darkness of his bedroom at three AM and taking notes so his stupid ADHD brain would get it.
It was going to Donnie and asking him about painkillers and how to insert an IV, and expecting that to be it from him until he dropped a thick triple-annotated medical textbook in front of him and said I tried to make it more digestible for you, come to me if you have questions or concerns, and walked off.
And by the time Leo had opened his mouth to say thank you, holy shit I love you, Donnie was already long gone.
Three months. They had been cursed for three months.
They remembered all of it.
Leo hadn’t known when it’d started, but he remembered the thoughts had gotten especially bad about three months ago. He could cite his point of no return as refusing Donnie medical treatment after a fight with Hypno; Mikey, as good at identifying his own emotions as he was, identified something a little earlier. Raph said it’d really only gotten bad for him two and a half months in, and based on the ashamed look on his face, Leo could easily guess what he was talking about.
He didn’t know how to describe it, really— it was like being in a trance, riding along the high of adrenaline. It felt like free will, the cruelty he exhibited. He felt good doing it, like he was freeing himself from an enemy, like he was getting revenge for years of inconvenience. He reveled in lying to him, hurting him, making him squirm.
It made him feel sick.
Dad had stepped in to help with most of the medical treatment early on, when Leo had been too panicked and inconsolable to handle it himself, but Leo was the only one who knew how to navigate the more difficult parts of the process. He was the one inserting painkillers and antibiotics and tracking his temperature and his weight (god, his weight, fuck) and setting fractured bones, watching his broken, emaciated brother carefully to track every single change.
Leo didn’t like to sleep, really. He didn’t like to sit down for too long, not when he had such an important responsibility, and definitely not when thinking about it made him want to throw up. He couldn’t even look at his own sword. Dad had been the one to clean the blood-stained blade for him while he’d shaken through a panic attack in the corner, and it’d been the first time in so long that he’d had to admit I can’t do it. He was too exhausted to feel embarrassed.
Mikey hadn’t moved from Donnie’s bedside for six hours.
The two of them hadn’t spoken to each other at all. Mikey had draped his upper body over the cot at Donnie’s side, his head pillowed in his arms and face hidden. The only movement in hours had been the minute shake of his shoulders. Leo had been curled up in his chair, alternating between doom-scrolling and checking the clipboard of medical information he’d jotted down like it’d magically change if he looked away from it for a while. The only reason Raph and Dad weren’t there, doing the same, was because they’d been cleaning up the nastiest of the damage left behind from the attack.
(The last time he’d seen Raph a few hours ago, he’d been afraid of the intense, delirious focus in his eyes as he scrubbed the bloodstained floors, like the world would end if he didn’t do it properly. He’d been aware Raph would lash out badly if he interrupted him, so he let him be.)
It’d been a long time, however, and night was beginning to fall— and Leo didn’t want Mikey to fall asleep there. He’d wake up with a crick in his neck for sure.
Cautious, he set his clipboard on the counter and rose to his feet, stepping over to kneel next to Mikey. He put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently, plastering on a gentle smile when he turned to look up at him through wet lashes, his eyes glassy and red-rimmed.
“It’s getting late, bud,” he said softly, kindly, “Donnie’ll be okay for now, I’m here. He’s not going anywhere. You should get to bed.”
Mikey sniffled, looking disheveled and miserable. He’d pulled his mask down around his neck, something that made him look so much younger, more vulnerable. “I don’t…”
“If you want to stay in the medbay I can pull out a cot,” Leo continued. “It’s up to you.”
“I can’t stop thinkin’ about it,” Mikey mumbled.
Leo squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. “I know,” he said. “Me too.”
“Did you feel it too?” Mikey asked, hesitant. “When… when he broke it?”
Leo stiffened, drawing away on reflex. Mikey didn’t react at all, still watching him with big watery eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Donnie,” Mikey said, his voice cracking on the name. “I… he broke it, I felt it. It didn’t come outta nowhere, it was him. I don’t know what he did.”
“You’re sure?” Leo asked, suddenly worried.
Mikey nodded intently. “I can’t stop thinkin’ about it,” he repeated. “What if something happened to him too?”
Leo stared at the far wall and tried his hardest to compartmentalize this new information, trying to shape it into something that made sense. He had no idea what had broken the curse, not really. It felt like a thread snapping, a fire being stomped out, but that hadn’t felt like Donnie’s doing. He’d just assumed it was his own emotions as clarity set in. It felt different, sure, like something important had been torn out of his chest, but…
“I don’t know,” Leo admitted.
Mikey buried his face back into the sheets, only looking up a little to glance at Donnie, who had been lights-out for two days now. “We should talk to Barry,” he mumbled. “He knows all about mystic stuff. He’d know what’s going on.”
Leo paused, burying the sudden flare of panic in his ribs. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“What if it comes back?” Mikey asked, his voice pitching up in panic and determination.
“I—” Leo had to get up to stand, to pace. “No, I… I don’t want him anywhere around Donnie right now. He’s the only mystic-savvy guy we know, Mikey, what if he’s the one who did it?”
“He wouldn’t,” Mikey stressed. “He’s a good guy now, Leo. He created us!”
“Yeah, and he also attacked us!” Leo whirled on him, unable to control his volume, immediately fuming. “He also tried to kill us because we didn’t want to kill people for him, and he kidnapped us, did you forget about that?!”
“I know he did bad stuff!” Mikey finally pulled away and jumped to his feet, stepping into Leo’s space. “I’m not saying he didn’t do bad stuff, but he’s the only one who’d know what’s going on. You have to trust him eventually!”
“He threw me off a roof!” Leo snarled. “I could have died!”
“You didn’t!”
“Does that MATTER?!” He was shaking all over, the panic and desperation and fury bowling him over again in one huge wave. “I don’t care! I don’t want that fucking psychopath anywhere NEAR HIM!”
“Why don’t you trust me?!” Mikey cried. “You never listen to me about this stuff! We gotta do something and Barry’s the only guy who knows about how this kind of thing works in the first place!”
“I trust you,” Leo seethed, “but I don’t trust him! He’s the only one who could do this with a motive, tell me that’s not suspicious!”
“I trust him!” Mikey snapped. “He’d never!”
Leo’s rage exploded. “I can’t— How would you KNOW THAT, MIKEY?!”
“What is going on in here?!”
Mikey froze, his argument dying on his tongue as he snapped his mouth shut. Still seething, Leo whirled around to face the doorway, relaxing minutely as Dad stepped in with Raph on his heels. Their hands were still stained in blood.
“Leo’s not listening to me!” Mikey shouted.
“I’m listening to you, I just think it’s a shit idea!” Leo shouted back. “Dad, please can you knock some sense into him?!”
Dad sighed, an old, sad sound. “Tell me what you are arguing about.”
“I was just—”
“He somehow thought—”
“He won’t—”
“For some reason—”
“One at a time!” Dad snapped, cutting off their overlapping voices. If they were closer to him, Leo imagined he likely would have smacked them with his tail. “Michelangelo?”
“I was saying,” Mikey said, with this bitter confidence that made Leo want to shove him, “that something happened, like– I dunno, I felt it when Donnie broke the curse, and we don’t know what he did, right? And he doesn’t know anything about mystic stuff, so something bigger could’ve been going on! And— and—”
“Mikey, please, for the love of—” Leo snarled. “He said we should go talk to Draxum!”
“Draxum?!” Dad shouted, bewildered.
“He’s the only one that knows about mystic stuff!” Mikey pleaded. “Barry’s redeemed, and– and— you made a truce with him, right? Maybe he’ll know what happened!”
“I do not want that man in our home,” Dad replied, firmly but a lot gentler than Leo had been.
“That’s what I’m saying!” Leo agreed.
“Leonardo,” Dad warned. “Do not start fights. This is hard on all of us.”
Leo sighed and rolled his eyes, throwing himself back to sit on his chair again.
“None of you ever listen to me!” Mikey shouted, his eyes welling up with angry tears. “I just— we gotta do something! Raph?”
Raph looked scandalized at being singled out, flinching backwards. He visibly hesitated at the look in Mikey’s eyes, before shaking his head with a sympathetic frown. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea, bud,” he croaked, his voice still broken from the shouting before. When Mikey’s face twisted with heartbreak, he clarified, “I’m not sayin’ I don’t trust you, I just think it’s a big leap from what we’ve already been doin’ with him.”
“But— but—”
Mikey shut his mouth, glancing around the room. The beading tears streaked down his face at the resolute expressions that met his, his brow furrowing with frustration and his teeth gritting.
“Fine!” he spat, immediately turning to stomp out of the room.
Leo pulled his knees up to his chest and glared at the empty doorway, too furious to feel bad. Just the idea of someone potentially dangerous being around Donnie right now made his blood sing with adrenaline. He couldn’t go through it all again. He couldn’t even entertain the possibility.
Raph sighed, looking so much older than he actually was. “Raph’ll go talk to him,” he said.
“Good luck,” Leo grumbled, burying his face in his knees.
There was a beat of silence, before Raph’s footsteps began to retreat. The metal doors slid open and closed again, leaving only Dad, Leo and Donnie in the medbay. For a long moment, the only sound was the oxygen mask pumping air into his little brother’s lungs. Leo could feel the weight of Dad’s stare on him.
Leo decided to break the tentative silence. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I will not force you to,” Dad replied in a soft voice. “I am just… worried about the way things are proceeding. If Orange is correct…”
“It’s fine,” Leo said. “We’ll worry about it later. We’ve got bigger problems.”
Dad was quiet for a long moment, and his next words were cautious, searching. “You are a brilliant medic, Leonardo,” he ventured. “We are very lucky to have you in this crisis.”
“Yeah, well,” Leo huffed out a small, sardonic laugh, undeterred by the compliment despite the rarity of it. “You have Donnie to thank for that. He’s the one who taught me.”
“There are many things to thank Donatello for,” Dad said, gentle and sad, “but your diligence is very much your own. I believe you deserve to hear it from me.”
Leo peeked up from his knees, looking Dad in the eyes, seeing the guilt and shame written across his features. He so clearly blamed himself for not knowing about what had happened, even though they’d gone out of their way to hide it from him, and threw him off the trail the whole way through. He wanted to apologize, to take some of the guilt off his shoulders— but he didn’t have the energy to do anything but nod, pretending to believe him.
“Will you be alright if I go check up on your brothers?” Dad asked.
No. Maybe. Probably. “Yeah. I think I need some time alone anyway.”
Dad nodded. He stepped over to give Leo’s knee a reassuring squeeze, before he turned and stepped out the door. Leo watched him leave, simultaneously bereft and relieved to be left alone. Donnie’s breath was crackling through the oxygen mask.
He stepped over to his twin’s bedside and sat down next to him, creating a dip next to his legs. Like he was reaching out to touch a wild animal, he settled a hand on his nape, rubbing his thumb in circles; a gesture that he’d learned always soothed Donnie at least marginally when he was upset to the point of tears. It was such a vulnerable spot he trusted Leo to hold. He’d trusted him with every little bit of himself.
He knew that wouldn’t be true anymore. By the way he begged for mercy, Donnie clearly still trusted Leo with the authority of who and what he was, and what he was meant to do— but that didn’t negate the fear Leo had crushed him with.
He wanted Donnie so badly in the face of everything, to fold into him and cling to him and be wrapped in his arms so he wouldn’t have to look at all of the carnage he’d left behind. He was also so terrified thinking about the state he would be in when he woke.
We’ll worry about it later had become Leo’s philosophy for all of this. Putting all of that terror and uncertainty on the backburner to make sure Donnie didn’t die in his sleep was the only thing he could do, the only thing he could give. He put everything into it, all of his time and focus and diligence, like Donnie would slip away the moment he faltered.
Leo stayed at his bedside until morning rose, trying not to lose himself. Nobody visited him all night, and for that he was grateful.
There were a lot of things Leo would never understand about Donnie. When his twin wasn’t taken off guard and unable to hide his pain, he’d obfuscate his intentions behind pretty much everything he did, no matter how unimportant and miniscule.
He’d once given Leo a fucking shock collar and later said in a shy, earnest voice, I–I thought you’d like it, when Leo had been so convinced hate and cruelty had been written into every line of code. He’d cared so much about how Leo felt about this thing programmed to hurt him, and it took months for Leo to process that maybe, maybe it was because that’s how Donnie expected to be treated.
Leo made fun of Donnie, and Donnie made fun of Leo. It was their thing. It was the natural order, to activate the Cain instinct in each other, to be a nuisance, to push and push and push until the other was prepared to literally start killing. Leo had been upset with Donnie that night because he’d crossed a line. He’d been even more upset to learn that Donnie didn’t know he’d crossed a line at all. And he’d been even more upset when he learned Donnie had done it as an act of love, because that was how he interpreted what Leo said to him.
When Leo called his tech junk, said his work was useless, called his rambles speech mode and covered his ears and started bitching about it, did it feel like how the shock collar felt to Leo? Did he think Leo was trying to fix these things about him instead of just being overdramatic about the fact that he didn’t really get them? Did he think that he wasn’t joking at all?
Was that what he meant when he said I’d trust you with anything?
(If Leo had been able to put a shock collar on him, would he have ever taken it off?)
Honestly, Leo had thought he was looking too deeply into it. The fact that Donnie loved him fiercely was unquestionable, and he came off like such a confident person, he just said shit that made him sound like that. Being sensitive didn’t take away from the fact that he was self-assured. Leo couldn’t be hurting him like that. Donnie would fucking smack him if he did, it had to be that simple.
And then Leo was cursed, and he had to confront the truth.
(Donnie had already been wearing one.)
After the curse broke, these were the facts Leo woke up with:
Leo didn’t love him enough.
Donnie didn’t see anything wrong with it.
“Why are you making this into a me problem when it sounds like more of a you problem? I swear, you– you always get so worked up over the dumbest shit, and when there’s nothing to get worked up over you just make shit up!”
Leo didn’t trust him enough.
Donnie didn’t see anything wrong with it.
“I thought the writing was on the wall. It was like a whole thing, dude. You— you— are you seriously trying to like, lie to me right now?”
Leo had never, ever given Donnie the amount of respect that Donnie gave him.
Donnie believed he deserved it.
“Right, I forgot. Every time you actually do something wrong you just deny it, like always. Maybe it was my fault for expecting just a little bit of responsibility from you.”
And Donnie had still smiled at him like he was the center of the universe every time he’d laughed.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he’d said, “if you don’t even know what you’re saying sorry for.”
Leo startled awake to the sound of screaming from the other side of the lair.
Specifically, April’s screaming— and she sounded furious.
His blood ran cold. Without thinking, he leapt to his feet and bolted downstairs, hearing Raph’s voice in the mix, sounding panicked and desperate in the same way he did that night. April was shouting over him, hysterical in her anger. Leo stopped in the doorway, stunned by the sight. For as strong-willed as she was, she very rarely exploded like this.
“—FOR MONTHS I LISTENED TO YOU!” she was screaming, stalking forward like she was seconds away from pouncing at him. “AND YOU LIED! SO YOU EITHER TELL ME WHAT YOU DID TO HIM RIGHT NOW, OR YOU GIVE ME PERMISSION TO KICK YOUR ASS!”
“April, hey—” Raph pleaded, his hands held up placatingly. It only served to make her angrier.
“I ain’t interested in any of that wishy-washy EXCUSE BUSINESS!” she howled, poking him in the chest hard enough for him to stumble back. “Do you know how long I’ve been LOOKIN’ FOR HIM because of what YOU DID?!”
“I–I—” Raph’s voice broke, and he teared up. “April–”
“April!”
Mikey clipped past Leo’s shoulder as he rushed past. Undeterred by her seething rage, he practically threw himself onto her, wrapping his arms around her middle and immediately bursting into sobs. April froze, stunned.
Momentarily she softened, the sight of the baby of the family weeping in her arms soothing the fire in her eyes. She wrapped her arms around him and choked out, “oh, Mikey,” before she seemed to remember herself, trying to draw away from him. “Wait, no, I’m mad at you right now. What did you do?!”
“You’re here,” Mikey sobbed. “A–A-April–l, I-I—”
She futilely tried to pull him off her, fury creeping back into her expression. “I’m kinda tired of bein’ kept out of the loop!” she snapped. “Tell me what’s goin’ on with Donnie right now or I’m gonna—”
And then Dad said, “April.”
She turned around to face him from where he stood in the shadows, looking somber. The snarl on her face darkened at the sight of him, the kind of expression a wild animal would make when protecting their young. “What?!”
“Do not shout at them,” Dad said, melancholic. “It is not their fault, and they have been through enough already. Come with me and we’ll discuss it elsewhere.”
April made a high, furious noise and shoved Mikey off her, storming after Dad without looking back. Mikey sniffled hugely and accepted the hug Raph offered him, still weeping and shaking all over. Leo’s hand swept down the wall as he took a step back, antsy and uncomfortable due to being out of the medbay for too long.
“She hates us!” Mikey wailed.
“No, no,” Raph reassured. “She just doesn’t know what’s goin’ on. She’s just out of the loop.”
Leo deflated. “I wouldn’t blame her if she did.”
“Leo,” Raph warned.
“We lied to her,” Leo said. “I don’t wanna sugarcoat that.”
“It wasn’t our fault,” Raph stressed, face twisting in despair. Mikey pulled away to glance at them both, brow furrowed in concern.
“Then who’s was it, Raph?!” Leo snapped. “She’s gonna be hurt either way. Does it really matter whether or not we meant it? Do you actually think that’s going to change anything?!”
Raph stopped to stare at him, a knowing softness entering his gaze. Leo was panting, already working himself up with anger. More than anything he just wanted Raph to shout back, to shout him down, to pick a fight. He wanted to get rid of all the wound up tension crushing down on him.
“You know she’ll forgive us,” Raph said, gently.
“She shouldn’t.”
“But she’s gonna.”
Leo masked his eyes behind his hand, taking in a deep, labored breath. “Yeah,” he said, and then repeated, “but she shouldn’t.”
“No,” Raph agreed, “she shouldn’t.”
The room plunged into tense silence. Leo breathed deeply to avoid hyperventilating, unnerved by the distant echo of her raised voice as Dad broke the news to her. He ran the conversation over his head and tried to discern the exact point where they’d implicitly stopped talking about April. (Did it really matter when it applied to both of them?)
There were no words to describe the all-encompassing terror that had obliterated them in the immediate aftermath.
Well, the truth was, maybe there were; as much as Leo could twist and turn his sentences with performance-level expertise and a sharp silver tongue, he could never foray into the unknown with the same blunt fidelity that Donnie had. His twin was the opposite of him, in that regard— while Leo slithered through the gaps, Donnie cleaved his problems in two with maniacal excitement and an inquisitive gleam in his eye.
And deep down, they broke in the exact same way;
Leo rose, his tenacity formless and unbreakable, and continued to flow,
and Donnie always shattered.
Leo knew this. All of his life he had known this. Regardless of the walls Donnie had built around himself, one wrong blow and he would lose his footing for good. In every way his beloved baby twin was a glass cannon, with his voracious dedication to obtaining praise and encouragement, (his limitless well of creativity on the battlefield) and his anguish in the face of contempt from the people he loved (his delicate shell, his fragile immune system, his sensitive lungs).
Never before had he witnessed his brother be crushed so thoroughly. Leo had soothed the cracks in his resolve and glued the chipped pieces back before, scars and grooves that told stories of labors of love—but he’d never had to cradle the dust in his hands in the way that he had that night, unable to remember the shape that it had once formed. He’d never felt so in over his head.
He’d never thought he would be the cause of it.
That night had been indescribable. Leo remembered every waking moment of the curse, but the moment the thread snapped, his mind had been lost to a blur of shouting and sobbing, howling voices and screeching monitors and claws turned on each other as they succumbed to fury and despair. They might have torn each other apart, had Dad not intervened.
Leo had thought he was good at keeping it together in the face of danger. They came to him with cuts and bruises and illnesses and he soothed their fear and talked them through it, calm and tepid. It was the closest thing to talent he’d had, and yet in the most critical moments with his twin’s life on the line, he had been reduced to a wailing, blubbering mess.
He hadn’t been the only one.
They argued and shouted about the way forward, sure, but ever since that night an odd calm had settled over the lair, born from shock and denial. Slowly the weight of it all was coming to them in pieces. Leo didn’t know if he was prepared to see how the dynamic would shift when Donnie woke up. He knew he wouldn’t be angry (they’d beaten it out of him), but there was no way he wouldn’t be terrified of them, even though he knew they’d been cursed.
There was no way they hadn’t broken him for good. The longevity of trying to put him back together was so daunting, and Leo found himself unable to process it. In a way, Donnie was already dead. He’d been dead since the moment they sealed him in the dark. There was nothing left behind but dust.
“Hey,” April said, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. “You really need to eat, Elle.”
Leo looked up from where he’d been sitting, too world-weary and exhausted to be frustrated with her attempt to get him out of the medbay. “I’m not hungry.”
“Mhm,” April hummed, disbelieving. “Still better to get something in your stomach anyway. Not havin’ any hunger cues doesn’t mean you’re not hungry.”
Leo stared at her. “Why aren’t you mad at me?”
April stared back, and then sat down on the chair next to him.
“You’re not the one who did this,” she said, gentle, a bit strained. “I mean, I am mad at you, but I’m not mad at… at you you. I’m just mad at the situation.”
“I am the one who did this,” Leo grumbled. “I’m the one who stabbed him, and hit him, and yelled at him, and lied to him— and, and it felt good, April. I felt good doing it.”
“Do you feel good now?”
“Does it matter?”
April leaned back, staring at Donnie in the cot. Beaten to hell and back, on a ventilator, looking tense even in his drugged sleep, a collar of bruises mottling his throat. They were running low on their specialized painkillers, Leo knew— he hoped they’d have enough to facilitate the worst of it. He also really didn’t want to ask Donnie to make more, even though he was the only one who could. A small protective and furious part of him never wanted him to do his job again, even though he knew he’d loved it. But they’d ruined it for him.
“I think it depends on the situation,” April said, “and this time it does. You’re not the one that cursed you. You aren’t at fault for that. Whoever did…” she paused, something resembling realization flashing across her face, “...it’s their fault.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like we know who that is,” Leo mumbled, drawing his knees up to his chest. “Who would even— who would even do something like this?”
April stared at him. She didn’t say anything, her gaze searching.
“Donnie didn’t– he didn’t do anything to anyone,” Leo continued, staring at the unconscious body of his brother in the cot instead of at April. “Not to anyone who could do something like that. It’s just— I don’t even know— why him? It only made us angry at him.”
Silence. Dread prickled down his spine.
And April tensed, horror dawning on her face. Her eyes widened in barely concealed alarm as she leaned in. “You mean, he didn’t tell you?”
Leo’s heart plummeted. He turned to look at her, suddenly so, so scared. “Tell me what?"
He politely excused himself to the bathroom and proceeded to have the worst panic attack of his life.
There was red streaking the pale porcelain sink. The mirror had been shattered to pieces, the crater in the middle dripping with blood. The last coherent, hysterical thought Leo managed was an oh, fucking mood before he lost himself to the agony of puking his guts out into the toilet.
He had nightmares about the look in Donnie’s eyes when he’d backhanded him.
There had been shock, grief, despair— he’d been harmed by someone he’d been convinced would never hurt him, in his own safespace, after pleading for nothing but acknowledgment that he loved him, the bare minimum. To Leo’s knowledge, it was the first time anyone had ever laid their hands on him with the intent to really hurt him, and the betrayal written across his face hurt more than the listless, catatonic expression he’d had when they’d beaten him bloody in the hallway.
But really, the thing that startled him awake almost every night was the reverence in his eyes. The flash of trust, of understanding. Donnie had forgiven him before he’d even hit the floor. Donnie had trusted him until the very end.
Leo would never forget it. Leo would never forgive himself.
“Our birthday’s in a week,” he said hollowly.
Raph let the medbay door slide shut behind him as he stepped out. He planted himself on the floor, leaning against the wall, dropping down with an audible thump.
“His is,” he corrected, in a quiet, broken voice.
“It was supposed to be ours,” Leo whispered.
“And it’s not.”
“No,” Leo said. “It isn’t.”
“Do you think he knows?” Raph asked.
Leo slid down to sit next to Raph and didn’t respond.
He was a month older than Donnie, almost exactly. His birthday had technically been a little less than a three weeks ago, back when they were still cursed, and they’d celebrated it accordingly. It went against a pact he and Donnie made when they were seven— for as much as his little brother loved being the center of attention, he was terrified of receiving gifts.
Even back then, when Dad asked him what he wanted, the only thing Donnie had supplied him with was you don’t have to do anything. Not an I don’t want you to, because deep down, he did, and Leo had known it.
So they’d made a compromise. Leo would hold off celebrating his birthday, and they’d share Donnie’s. It stopped him from being overwhelmed, because he could give to Leo while Leo gave to him, to make it feel like an exchange. It abated that guilt, and it allowed Leo to shower him in the praise and attention he had truly wanted to.
And they got to be twins. After a while they stopped speaking of the one month difference between them, because in all ways that mattered they chose to be twins. Leo without Donnie there next to him—and vice versa—was an incomplete picture. Leo was Donnie’s beating heart. Donnie was the breath in Leo’s lungs.
But it still influenced everything. Donnie looked to Leo for guidance, stood next to Mikey when he and Raph argued about what to do. He ran to him when he was afraid and upset, held him like a lifeline when he cried, begged for him when he was delirious with pain. And when split in a battle, Raph would almost always tell Leo to go help “the little ones” instead of staying with him. Him and his older brother long, long ago had made that agreement— that Donnie and Mikey were fragile, and they needed to be protected.
In a lot of ways, the only thing that had changed was the way that they talked about it.
(There were a lot of things they’d stopped talking about that never truly went away.)
Under the influence of the curse, they had celebrated Leo’s birthday, all while Donnie was locked in a closet, begging to be let out. They hadn’t told April, or Dad, and especially not him, that they’d done it. They’d laughed amongst themselves like the act of cruelty was the funniest thing they’d ever done. They’d said words that Leo could still taste like cyanide on his tongue.
Leo had gotten the gifts they’d planned for him already. They’d laughed and danced and did karaoke and watched his favorite movies, cuddled up together and flicked popcorn at each other, cheekily avoiding the topic when Dad asked what they were up to, while Donnie had cried for them in the dark, voice destroyed from screaming, because he’d trusted them.
Donnie’s fifteenth birthday was in a week. Considering the slow progress of his healing, there was no way he wouldn’t spend it on bedrest, terrified of them, if he was awake at that point at all. Leo had ruined the only day of the year Donnie had that let him be selfish . Leo wanted to give him the night sky and he’d blown the chance to give him so much as a speck of stardust.
“I don’t think I want him to know,” Leo admitted, minutes into the tense silence, with a hand over his eyes, “if he doesn't already.”
“I don’t wanna lie to him,” Raph’s voice was unnaturally subdued.
“I don’t either,” Leo whispered. “We already lied to him so much. But that was— it’s a kind of terrible that I can’t even put words to. I’ve already taken so much from him. I can’t take this too.”
Raph hung his head, his eyes slipping shut. He breathed deep to reign himself in, likely to hold back a wave of tears. His tone was strangled. “Yeah.”
“I don’t even know if he’ll be awake in a week,” Leo continued. “I just… it’s not like we have to celebrate it then, I doubt he’ll want to. But I can’t tell him about that. I c-can’t see the look on his face when I tell him what we did. I can’t live with it.”
“It’d break his little heart,” Raph said.
Leo sniffled. “It would.”
“He’d forgive us.”
“I know.”
“I don’t wanna lie to him,” Raph repeated. He scooted closer to Leo, accepting it when he bonked his head on his shoulder. “But we’ve already done it so much and this— I guess it’s for his own good. All the stuff we did when he wasn’t around… he doesn’t gotta know about it.”
“Do you think he’ll want to celebrate our birthday ever again?” Leo wheezed, his voice finally cracking as he lost his iron grip on his composure.
“I don’t know. You… you know him better than me.”
“That’s the problem,” Leo was working himself up, chuckling hysterically through his tears. “I don’t know. I don’t wanna act like a doomer about this and act like it’s never going to get better but— three months, Raph. And we tried to kill him. We confirmed everything he was so scared of.”
“It’s not your fault,” Raph attempted to soothe.
“He trusted us!” Leo cried. “He trusted us and we hurt him!”
Raph’s eyes welled up with tears. His face twisted with pure grief. “I know,” he agreed.
“He loved me!” Tears were streaming down Leo’s face, and he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop running his mouth, he couldn’t stop crying, he couldn’t stop shaking like he was falling apart. “And I know that hasn’t changed, because nothing I do is ever gonna make him not love me, but I failed him, and I tried to kill him, and every time he was hurt he used to call for me and he came to me after nightmares and when he had fights with you guys because he looked up to me, Raph, I was his role model and I DIDN’T EVEN FUCKING KNOW IT—!”
Raph gently pulled Leo into his arms. Leo pressed his face into his big brother’s plastron and sobbed like someone was killing him. It wasn’t even a fraction of the pain Donnie must have felt in the past three months. He’d never come close to experiencing that kind of pain.
(He wished that one day he could provide the same kind of comfort for Donnie that Raph provided for him. It was the wishful thinking of a guilty man.)
Raph was crying too. “I know,” he whispered. “Trust me, better than anyone, I know.”
“It’s never gonna get better,” Leo wept. “It’s never gonna go back to normal. He’s– he’s gone, Raph, he’s gone. We’re never gonna get him back.”
With a great heaving sob, Raph pressed his face into Leo’s shoulder, jostling them both. “He’s here with us,” he blubbered, barely comprehensible, through open-mouthed crying. “We still got him. We’re gonna make it better. We– we gotta make it b-better.”
Leo’s tears were just as unstoppable. He’d never cried so hard before, never grieved in the way he was grieving now, because in every way that mattered, he’d lost Donnie for good. He’d lost his other half, the air in his lungs, the brightest star in his sky, his hardheaded, stubborn, loving, remarkable baby twin.
He’d lost impromptu dance parties, and maniacal cackling, and triple-annotated medical textbooks, and weirdly convoluted birthday gifts, and jokes that would make him scream with laughter, and a hand in his when he was afraid and didn’t want to show it — quiet nights where they drank coffee together and talked about their deepest fears, and that mischievous sparkle in his eyes when he got him to giggle like a schoolgirl, and that blind, blind trust as Leo lead him through the tunnel and towards warmth and safety, because he loved him.
Leo had turned back, and Donnie was gone. He’d surfaced into the light, alone, and he would never be able to stand in the sunshine without feeling like he’d stolen it. Every breath he took was air he had ripped out of Donnie’s lungs.
Soon, Donnie would wake and Leo would have to meet his eyes every single day.
He’d never see him again.
“He can’t know,” Leo sobbed, babbling in despair, not even thinking to filter his words. “I can’t— we can’t make it worse for him. We have– we have a chance, we can… we’ll throw a new party when he’s ready, we’ll make it perfect, we’ll pretend we– we never did the last one, we’ll fix it. He needs to— he needs to know we…” he couldn’t finish the sentence.
Raph’s voice was tiny when he whimpered, “yeah.”
Leo pulled Raph a little closer and stayed there, wrapped in his arms, unable to speak. His sobs finally tapered out as he succumbed to exhaustion.
Which meant he felt when Raph turned to stone underneath him, felt his sharp intake of breath, the choking wheeze that came after.
“Leo,” Raph breathed. “Leo, he’s got cameras.”
Leo’s heart plummeted. He was winded and breathless with panic. “No.”
“He’s gonna see—” Raph was shaking hard. “He records everything, he said that. He’s gonna see all of this. Everything we did. Everything we’re doin’.”
“No he’s not,” Leo’s voice went cold. “He won’t.”
“But—”
Leo drew back, holding Raph by the shoulders. “We know his password, right?” his words rang like the snap of frost. “We can– we can get into his computer and, and delete it, all of it, I don’t know. He doesn’t have to know. He won’t know.”
Raph looked uncertain. His resolve only hardened when he took in the determined fire in Leo’s eyes, and he nodded sharply, mouth set into a firm line.
“We’ll take down the cameras,” Leo’s voice shook with fear. His claws dimpled Raph’s skin. He spoke with the desperation of a lunatic, with crazed eyes and a trembling smile. “Everything, all of it. Burn them if we have to! He’s never gonna have to deal with this again. And then we’ll— we’ll go figure out who did this and– and we’ll make them pay. You with me?”
“Raph’s with ya,” Raph agreed, bright and burning, and pulled him back into a hug— fierce, desperate, thankful.
Leo sank into chest and let the relief of having something to do crash over him. It was the first step to making things better. It was something. Something.
He could at least try to make it a little better.
His lungs burned.
After the curse broke, these were the facts Leo woke up with:
Donnie would continue to respect him.
Leo would never forgive himself.
“Stop saying that! If you were actually sorry you wouldn’t be doing this!”
Donnie would continue to trust him.
Leo would never forgive himself.
“Maybe I don’t want you to try. Maybe I want you to actually get your shit together and be useful.”
Donnie would continue to love him.
Leo was going to make the motherfucker who did this to him burn.
“Oh my God. You’re pathetic.”
And no matter what he did, Donnie was never, ever going to be the same.
“God, what the hell is your problem?” he’d said.
“It’s like I can’t even recognize you anymore.”